DID YOU KNOW?
SAINT MARY’S HAS PLEDGERS FROM ALL OVER

When Saint Mary’s was founded in 1868, it was intended to be the parish church for the new residential neighborhood known as Longacre Square—the name of the area before it was changed to Times Square in 1904. That original church community has certainly grown dramatically since those early days, both in number and in geography.

People from all over the United States and the world care about Saint Mary’s. We’ve always enjoyed a national reputation for the beauty of our liturgy and the amazing music program, but did you know that Saint Mary’s actually has both members and supporters from all over the country?

We thought it would be fun to look at the latest pledging rolls on a map to see the breadth of Saint Mary’s support. Each pin on these maps represents a zip code in which at least one pledging unit lives. Some of these pins have multiple pledgers (specifically the zip codes in New York City), but it gives you an idea of how widespread financial commitment to Saint Mary’s is. We have pledgers from every corner of the country—from Anchorage to San Diego, from Bangor to Miami, and lots of places in between.

Zooming in on the Tri-State Area, you can see that pledgers are from all over the New York City area—from all five boroughs, from Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

We know that people often travel quite a distance on a Sunday morning to be with us in Times Square, and we know folks from much farther away who make a very special effort to be with us for important feasts like the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in December. (We’re looking at you, Butler, Pennsylvania, and Tampa, Florida!)

But clearly, not everyone supporting the parish is able to be with us every week and many not even once a year. So why do people who live far from our neighborhood choose to support Saint Mary’s? Some clearly support the work that Saint Mary’s does to preserve the Anglo-Catholic liturgical tradition—a touchstone we want to persist even if it’s not nearby and readily accessible. Some like the idea of a monumental witness to Jesus Christ in the middle of Times Square’s neon madness.

The XXV Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold said, “Urban parishes in…strategic locations are extremely important.” He noted that, “Just as the world passes through Times Square, to a certain extent, the world passes through Saint Mary’s.” Saint Mary’s is an “oasis and a place that speaks to another dimension of life,” but it’s also “much larger than New York City even in its capacity to welcome and be a beacon for all sorts of people from all sorts of places.”

Our beacon shines far and our witness speaks to many, and we’re grateful for the broad support. One of my favorite observations from our most recent rector, the Reverend Stephen Gerth, one that was often delivered with a wry smile, was: “You can’t belong to more than one parish, but you can pledge to as many as you like.” We hope Saint Mary’s is doing something you think is worth supporting even if your pin is far away on the map. — The Board of Trustees

THE PARISH PRAYER LIST

We pray for the sick, for those in any need or trouble, and for all those who have asked us for our prayers. We pray for those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries this week; for those who are traveling; for the unemployed and for those seeking work; for the incarcerated; for those struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction; and for those living amid violence, or with drought, storm, inclement weather, flood, fire, or earthquake.

We pray for the members of the Board of Trustees of this parish and for the members of the Search Committee.

We pray for peace throughout the world, and especially for the people of Ukraine, Sudan, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen, and Myanmar.

We pray for reconciliation among the churches and people of the Anglican Communion.

As we begin this Pride Month, we pray for all LGBTQI+ people. May it be a time of celebration and joy. And we also pray for a growth in understanding and respect among all people and for an end to hatred, contempt, intolerance, and violence.

We pray for John, who is gravely ill, and for Marie, Barbara, Theo, Steven, Carlos, Christopher, Richard, Chuck, Alexandra, James, José, Paris, Charlotte, Chelsey, Penny, Erica, Mark, Liz, Keith, Carl, Thomas, Jennifer, Susan, Harka, Gigi, Julie, Carole, Suzanne, Sharon, Liduvina, Carmen, Karl, Greta, Quincy, Ava Grace, Phyllis, Jim, Barbara, Bruce, Robert, Abe, Gypsy, Hardy, Randy, Margaret, Bob, and Allan, priest.

We pray for the repose of the souls of Marjorie Ross and Bert Frederick Breiner, priest; and for those whose anniversary of death falls on June 4, Ethel Grant (1915), M. Budreau (1947), and Harold Rocks (1961). May they rest in peace and rise in glory.

ON THE HOLY TRINITY

It is rash to search too far into [the mystery of the Holy Trinity]. It is piety to believe it. It is life eternal to know it. And we can never have a full comprehension of it, till we come to enjoy it. — Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S

Our regular daily liturgical schedule, Monday through Friday, is Morning Prayer 8:00 AM, Mass 12:10 PM, and Evening Prayer at 5:00 PM. Holy Hour is offered on Wednesday at 11:00 AM and Thursday’s Mass includes a Healing Service. On Saturdays, Mass is celebrated at 12:10 PM and Evening Prayer is prayed at 5:00 PM. On Sundays, Solemn Mass is offered at 11:00 AM and Evening Prayer at 5:00 PM.

Holy Hour and Novena in Preparation for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. In the Lady Chapel at 11:00 AM on the following days: Saturday, June 3; Monday, June 5; Tuesday, June 6; Wednesday, June 7; and Thursday, June 8. On Sunday, June 4, our Eucharistic devotions for the Novena will occur during Evensong & Benediction at 5 PM.

Friday, June 2, 5:30–6:45 PM, The Centering Prayer Group meets in Saint Benedict’s Study.

Sunday, June 4, Trinity Sunday, Solemn Mass and Te Deum 11:00 AM, Evensong and Benediction 5:00 PM. This will be the final Evensong of the 2023–2024 season. Evensong will resume on the first Sunday of October.

Commemorations during the Week of June 4, 2023: Said Mass at 12:10 PM in the Lady Chapel

Monday, June 5, Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, Missionary and Martyr, 754
Friday, June 9, Columba, Abbot of Iona, 597
Saturday, June 10, Ephrem of Edessa, Syria, Deacon, 373

PLEASE READ: NEWS OF SAINT MARY’S

The Guild of All Souls: A few months ago, I floated the idea of rebooting the local chapter of the Guild of All Souls here at Saint Mary’s, and I’m delighted to announce that we’re finally able to move forward on this project! I would like to invite all the members and friends of Saint Mary’s to the first monthly Requiem Mass to be celebrated here at the parish in some time. The Mass will be offered at 12:10 PM in the Mercy Chapel on Saturday, June 17, at 12:10 PM. If you are interested in hearing more about the Guild of All Souls, you are invited to join me after Mass for a light lunch during which I will speak about the Guild, its history, mission, and ministry. If you would like to join us, please let me know by sending me an e-mail by Wednesday, June 14. — Father Sammy Wood

Christian Education and Formation 2023–2024: Father Sammy and I met this week for our second meeting this spring to discuss and make plans for our Christian Education and Formation programs for the 2023–2024 season. In 2022-2023, we spent a good deal of time studying the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. During the coming year we will offer two sessions of Bible Study taught by Father Peter Powell. (Father Peter is working out the details but will likely be talking about the oldest stratum in that famously multi-layered work, the Book of Isaiah. We are very grateful that Father Peter has agreed to teach again this year. He will do so in November and again on the Sundays in Lent, including Palm Sunday.)

But we will also focus on practices that help us to live as disciples of Christ and to do so with integrity. This means that we will look at conversion, baptism, transformation, metanoia, prayer, rules of life, ascetical practices, the formation of habits, and Christian community, among other things. It is our hope that this series will engage both mind and heart and that our learning will help us to grow as individuals and as a community.

One of the books that we will study and talk about is Dr. Derek Olsen’s Inwardly Digest: The Prayer Book as Guide to a Spiritual Life (Forward Movement, 2016). Back in 2013, Richard Mammana, a good friend of Saint Mary’s, interviewed Derek for The Living Church. One of the things that Derek said in the interview gets to the heart of what we hope to do next year:

“This is my hope for the Episcopal Church in particular, Anglicanism in general, and the wider Christian community: I want us really to engage the practices of faith that help build up the body of Christ and that further our personal and corporate relationships with the triune God. We have great spiritual riches. The history of the Church is a treasure trove of this stuff—of teachings, and practices, and disciplines. But it’s up to us to bring out the treasures old and new, and to apply them to and within the challenges and struggles of twenty-first-century life. [Martin Thornton] an Anglican theologian of the last generation,  reminds us that the true test of any spiritual practice is whether it builds our capacity to love. If it’s not transforming us according to the mind of Christ and leading us to love God and neighbor, you’re doing it wrong! My prayer for the Church is a simple one, but not an easy one: I pray that the body of Christ grows into the mind of Christ” (The Living Church, December 11, 2013).

More information will be forthcoming, but if you would like to begin thinking and praying about our studies next season, you might begin to read Derek’s book, Inwardly Digest, or perhaps one of C.S. Lewis’s books—Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, or The Screwtape Letters. The Roman Catholic teacher and former Master of the Dominican Order, Father Timothy Radcliffe, has also written books that touch on the subjects we’ll study this year, Taking the Plunge: Living Baptism and Confirmation and What Is the Point of Being A Christian?

We look forward to studying, praying, worshipping, and serving with you in the months to come. — Father Jay Smith

Neighbors in Need: This month’s distribution event took place on Friday, May 19, from 1:30 to 3:00 PM. We had a surge of guests that day, and we served over 50 people. Our biggest needs now are clothing, especially shoes (sneakers or athletic shoes and other sturdy shoes), men’s and women’s pants and tops, and coats for next winter as well as jackets, t-shirts, polo shirts, and women’s tops suitable for spring and summer. And, of course, donations help us to purchase toiletries and underwear.

Next month’s Neighbors in Need distribution event will take place on Friday, June 16. Please contact us at neighbors@stmvnyc.org for more information about volunteering, making a donation, or about the goals, work, and methods of Neighbors in Need.

Donations for altar flowers may be made for Sunday, June 18 and Sunday, June 25. There are many available dates in July and August. To inquire about available dates and to arrange a donation for the altar flowers for a Sunday or a particular feast day, please contact Chris Howatt. For questions about flowers or the Flower Guild, please speak with Brendon Hunter.

ABOUT THE MUSIC AT THE SOLEMN MASS ON TRINITY SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 2023

Sunday morning’s organ voluntaries are the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). This majestic pair of pieces are the opening and closing works of Bach’s 1739 Clavierübung III, one of the most remarkable collections of organ music by a single composer ever compiled. At the center of this third part of Bach’s Clavierübung (“Keyboard Practice”) are the “Catechism” chorales—pairs of extended chorale settings and settings for manuals alone—which comprise Bach’s so-called “Organ Mass.” While theological references and tone-painting in the chorale preludes are to be expected due to the music’s association with liturgical texts, much has also been written about the religious imagery of the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat. In the Prelude, the French Overture-styled sections have been said to express the regal majesty of God the Father. Similarly, the echo passage sections have been said to represent God the Son, and those with downward rushing scales, God the Holy Spirit. The three main musical ideas of the Prelude, the three sections of the Fugue, and the three flats of the key signature might all be reflections of the Holy Trinity of God. In addition, many will notice the clear resemblance between the subject of Bach’s Fugue and William Croft’s hymn tune “St. Anne” which is easily recognized as “O God, our help in ages past,” a paraphrase of Psalm 90. While it is doubtful that Croft and Bach were aware of one another’s works, Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat is known as the “ ‘St. Anne Prelude’ and Fugue,” taking as its subtitle the name of Croft’s hymn tune.

The setting of the Mass on Sunday is the Missa Euge bone by Christopher Tye (c. 1505–c. 1573). (Euge, bone are the first two words of the phrase, “Euge, serve bone et fidelis,” which means “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. The phrase is found in the Latin version of the Bible at Matthew 25:21.) Tye was probably born in Cambridge, England, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1536. He served as a lay clerk at King’s College before being named master of the choristers at Ely Cathedral around 1543. In 1545 he was awarded the Doctor of Music degree by the University of Cambridge. Tye had a strong connection to Dr. Richard Cox, tutor of Prince Edward and later bishop at Ely. This led to Tye’s becoming the music teacher of King Edward VI and, doubtless, to his eventual ordination as a priest in 1561. Tye resigned from Ely and became rector of Doddington, Cambridgeshire, where he served the remainder of his life. The origins of Tye’s Mass Euge bone are uncertain, but it is believed that this setting may date from the composer’s early years at Ely, perhaps in connection with his doctoral degree. The music of the Mass is related to Tye’s earlier prayer motet, Quaesumus omnipotens Deus, which also is composed for six voices and includes both imitative counterpoint and rich choral textures.

The Communion motet on Trinity Sunday is a setting for five voices of the Matins Responsory for Trinity Sunday from a generation later than Tye by Roman Catholic organist and composer Peter Philips (c.1560–1635). Philips had a particularly colorful life which included performing, composing, editing, and publishing sacred and secular music in England, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Philips’s compositional mastery extended to all the forms he took on, including instrumental, keyboard, and choral expressions. Despite his having begun his music formation as a choirboy at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Philips’s madrigals and motets are stylistically closer to continental styles than the English examples of his time. Tibi Laus is one of the more madrigalian of Philips’s motets with its chordal textures and meter shifts between duple and triple.

Following the administration of Communion at the Solemn Mass on Sunday, the canticle Te Deum laudamus will be sung while incense is offered. The choir will sing this canticle, traditionally attributed to Saint Ambrose, to the customary plainsong in alternation with verses played on the organ. This manner of presenting liturgical texts, called alternatim, has often been applied to portions of the Mass and Office in past time. Alternatim performance practice was well established throughout Europe from the seventeenth century, documented in part by many organ versets which were composed for this purpose by leading organ composers. It is also not uncommon, both in the past and in our time, for organists to improvise verses in alternation with those sung to chant. — Dr. David Hurd

A NEW BOOK BY MOTHER LEE

Mother Deborah Lee, who led a Lenten Quiet Day at Saint Mary’s in March, has just published a new book, This Is Another Day: Reflections on Scripture, Faith, and Prayer for Action. Some of her reflections from the quiet day were drawn from this manuscript. The book is available for ordering online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and WestBow Press. From Amazon’s website: “This Is Another Day is a collection of daily meditations crafted to be a companion on your spiritual journey. Written from the heart, these devotional reflections invite us into God's word in order for us to speak a shared language of love, inspiration, sustenance, and even challenge as we journey together into unknown seasons. Buoyed by the overwhelming grace of Christ, we are called by Jesus-whose resurrection transcends death and fear-to keep our hearts and minds set on hope, love, mercy, justice, thanksgiving, and reconciliation.” Congratulations Mother Lee! — MDJ

OF TEXTILES, ORPHREYS, AND VESTMENTS

Marianna Klaiman is an independent textile scholar, who, following a successful twenty-year career of selling residential real estate, has returned to another calling—the study of historic ecclesiastical vestments and textiles. She is currently doing research for an upcoming book and lecture series, Sacristies of New York: Textile Treasures of the Episcopal Church. For a preview of the book, see her Instagram account: @sacristies_of_ny.

Not long ago, while reading Kathryn Ferry’s book, The Old Convent East Grinstead: John Mason Neale, George Edmund Street and the Society of St Margaret (2021), Marianna came upon an intriguing reference to our founder, Father Thomas McKee Brown (d. 1898). It turns out that the Sisters of the Society of Saint Margaret had made a set of vestments, including a chasuble, that had been commissioned by Father Brown for Saint Mary’s. The commission and the delivery of the vestments is well-documented in the sisters’ archives.

Marianna remembered having seen the chasuble here at Saint Mary’s when she was working with Sister Laura Katharine, CSJB, some years ago, to catalogue our own vestment collection. She stopped by recently to see the chasuble again for her research. She and Father Jay Smith spent a very happy and productive couple of hours looking at this treasured part of the parish’s patrimony and discussing how Marianna might be able to teach us more about nineteenth-century Ritualism, Anglican vestments—which would include a discussion of the “Father Brown Chasuble”—and related subjects. They also discussed ideas for preserving decommissioned vestments that can no longer be used but which remain of interest because of the beauty of their embroidery and decoration. More about all that in next week’s Angelus, including some information about our “Marian Set” of vestments. This set, including the chasuble which Father Matthew Jacobson recently wore at the Sung Mass on the Feast of the Visitation, was probably made in the mid-1950s. — JRS

COMING UP

Sunday, June 11, The Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Corpus Christi, Solemn Mass and Procession to the Times Square Neighborhood with the Blessed Sacrament 11:00 AM. Following the procession, Mass ends with Eucharistic Benediction in the church. Evening Prayer 5:00 PM.

Saturday, June 17, Monthly Requiem Mass in the Mercy Chapel at 12:10 PM.

Saturday, June 24, The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. Mass 12:10 PM in the Lady Chapel.

Thursday, June 29, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Morning Prayer 8:00 AM and Evening Prayer 5:00 PM in the Church. Mass 12:10 PM in the Lady Chapel. This Mass will include anointing and prayers for healing.

Father Matthew Jacobson will be away from the parish on vacation from Monday, June 12, until Thursday, July 6.

Father Sammy Wood will be away for some days of vacation, June 21–24. He returns to the parish on Sunday, June 25.

Father Jay Smith will be away from the parish on vacation from Wednesday, July 5, until Wednesday, August 2.

This edition of the Angelus was written and edited by Father Jay Smith, except as noted. Father Matt Jacobson also edits the newsletter and is responsible for formatting and posting it on the parish website and distributing it via mail and e-mail, with the assistance of Christopher Howatt, parish administrator, and parish volunteer, Clint Best.